The rest of the rest…

• On top of everything else, the federal government runs out of money in three weeks. David Rogers offers a lay of the land. Senate Democrats want to package the remaining spending bills into an omnibus and finish off the FY 2012 budget by the end of the year. Easier said than done.

• Dean Baker has a provocative suggestion in Al Jazeera today that the Federal Reserve should guarantee European bonds, basically stepping in for the ECB. This is not a spotless proposal, but one must also consider the alternative of Eurogeddon.

• In another provocative take, Thomas Edsall writes that the Obama campaign plans to effectively give up on attracting white working class voters in 2012. First, there’s no reason that it’s an either-or scenario. Second, the greatest gains over 2010 in the big races so far this year – particularly in Wisconsin and Ohio – have come from bounce-back performances by Democrats or the liberal position among the white working class. So abandoning that would be a mistake.

• The one candidate running for President who actually dares to utter the word “robo-signing” – with not a little derision – is Jon Huntsman.

• Markos rallies the troops on the Internet censorship bills working their way through Congress, which would really destroy sites with user-generated content like his.

• James Livingston has the best anti-austerity screed in a major news outlet in years in Bloomberg today.

• As the weather turns, the low-income home heating cuts are going to really loom large.

• While Ben Nelson still looks dead in Nebraska in 2012, the Democrats may be able to add another competitive race to the ledger, as the emergence of former Surgeon General Richard Carmona as a candidate has made the open seat in Arizona competitive.

• One reason to keep Carolyn Maloney out of the House Financial Services committee chairmanship is that, while she’s by most standards a good public servant, she represents the Wall Street area, and her blind spots on the excesses can be seen with this unfortunate legislation she’s co-sponsoring that would gut derivatives regulations.

• In desperation, Texas Republicans are appealing to the Supreme Court to stop the new court-ordered redistricting maps that stop the gerrymander and benefit Democrats. Nice overreach, Texas GOP.

• Barney Frank’s retirement won’t stop conservatives from erroneously claiming he caused the housing crisis.

• People seem to forget that Newt Gingrich was near the top of polls at the end of 2010 before the campaign began in earnest, solely because of name recognition. There’s at least some reason to believe that his surge will be more lasting than some of the other Not Romneys.

• More GOP primary news: the DNC keeps tweaking Mitt Romney; Rick Perry secures the racist sheriff vote, which you would think could help him with the soft on immigration charges; Herman Cain tries the pre-emptive grab for scandal attention trick today, by announcing that a woman will come forward with details of a 13-year affair even before she did.

• One big news item over the holiday weekend was that the AT&T/T-Mobile deal was placed on life support by the FCC. In the aftermath, there’s room for another player, at least, in the telecom space.

• New home sales are stuck in a pitiful position, basically moving sideways in a broken market.

• The Marines are coming around to the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell quietly and without incident, which is what most of us expected.

• What are we to make of the explosion at an Iranian missile site?

• The Arab League approved sanctions on Syria today, sending that country further into isolation.

• One of the heads of the lobbying shop that wanted to smear Occupy Wall Street is throwing a fundraiser for Mitt Romney.

• Good for the National Press Club for lifting their suspension on a journalist who aggressively questioned a Saudi prince.

• That Kansas teenager will not be punished by her school for tweeting that Gov. Sam Brownback sucks, and she even got Brownback to apologize to her.

• If Joe Paterno had to go, Jim Boeheim may be next, even though the Bernie Fine allegations are not nearly as clear-cut as the Jerry Sandusky ones, nor is there any indication that Boeheim engaged in a cover-up.

• RIP Ken Russell. Watch Lizstomania in tribute.

• A pro-Sarah Palin group plans to blow all their money, in spectacular, Harold Camping supporter-like fashion.